Part 35

There was in the manuscript a still earlier, and perhaps better, version of the first two lines:

Daphnis and Strephon led their flocks along, Both famed for love and both renowned in song.

They were however borrowed from Lycon, an Eclogue, in the fifth part of Tonson's Miscellany:

Strephon and Damon's flocks together fed, Both famed for wit, and famed for beauty both.

Wakefield points out that the opening verse of the couplet, as it stands in the text, was indebted to Congreve's Tears of Amaryllis for Amyntas:

When woolly flocks their bleating cries renew, And from their fleecy sides first shake the silver dew.]

Fresh as the month, and as the morning fair.--WAKEFIELD.]

Hos Corydon, illos referebat in ordine Thyrsis.--WAKEFIELD.]

O! nightingale, that on yon bloomy spray Warblest at eve!--WAKEFIELD.]

When grateful birds prepare their thanks to pay, And warble hymns to hail the dawning day.--WAKEFIELD.]

Hylas, oh Hylas! why sit we mute Now that each bird saluteth the spring.--WAKEFIELD.

Concanen having commented in the Supplement to the Profound upon the impropriety "of making an English clown call a well-known bird by a classical name," Pope wrote in the margin, "Spenser and Ph." The remainder of the second name has been cut off by the binder. Pope's memory deceived him if A. Philips was meant, for the nightingale is not once called Philomela in his Pastorals.]

See, my dear! How lavish nature has adorned the year.--WAKEFIELD.]

There the pale primrose and the vi'let glow,

which was evidently borrowed from a line in Dryden's Cock and Fox, quoted by Wakefield:

How the pale primrose and the vi'let spring.

The first edition of the Pastorals had

Here on green banks the blushing vi'lets glow,

and this reading was retained till the edition of Warburton. It probably at last occurred to the poet that as people do not blush blue or purple, the epithet "blushing" was inapplicable to the violet.]

his altar breathes Ambrosial odours and ambrosial flowers.]

And his own image from the bank surveys.--POPE.

Pope submitted the reading in the note, and that in the text to Walsh, and asked which was the best. Walsh preferred the text.]

Lenta quibus torno facili superaddita vitis, Diffusos edera vestit pallente corymbos. Virg.--POPE.]

And clusters lurk beneath the curling vines.--POPE.

Dryden's Virgil, Eclogues:

The grapes in clusters lurk beneath the vines.--BOWLES.]

And Roman triumphs rising on the gold.--WAKEFIELD.]

et quis fuit alter, Descripsit radio totum qui gentibus orbem?--POPE.